Re: NEW ocaml licence proposal by upstream, will be part of the 3.08.1 release going into sarge.
Glenn Maynard [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Sun, Aug 22, 2004 at 11:56:03PM -0400, Walter Landry wrote: If I understand correctly, you argue that DFSG #1-#9 should be interpreted in such a way to make the GPL free (because of, among other things, flamewars on -legal). That makes DFSG #10 a no-op. I argue that DFSG #10 enforces a particular interpretation. DFSG #10 is thus a consistency check. For those with the proper mindset, DFSG #10 is thus a no-op. I'm not sure that we're disagreeing about anything important. I can't tell if your position is that DFSG#10 is a grandfathering clause or that it's an interpretive guideline. Copyleft is only allowed because it is explicitly grandfathered in by DFSG #10 seems to be the former; that the GPL fails DFSG#1-9, but DFSG#10 overrides that. Here, I argue that DFSG #10 enforces a particular interpretation seems the latter; that the GPL passes DFSG#1-9, due to DFSG#10. These seem to be two very different interpretations. Could you clarify your position? Perhaps using the term grandfathering was ill advised. That would mean licenses with similar terms would be non-free. Rather, DFSG #10 enforces a particular interpretation. Regards, Walter Landry [EMAIL PROTECTED]
MontyLingua license
I am interested in MontyLingua, a wonderful natural language(well, English only) processing toolkit, which can use common sense library. Project homepage http://web.media.mit.edu/~hugo/montylingua/ Now I am puzzled by its license: http://web.media.mit.edu/~hugo/montylingua/doc/License.txt Quote: If it is your intent to use this software for non-commercial, non-prioprietary[sic] purposes, such as for academic research purposes, this software is free and is covered under the GNU GPL License, given here: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.txt and in the APPENDIX of this document. If you are interested in this software for commercial purposes, commercial licensing information is available. Please email ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) for more information. The rest of the document is request for acknowledgement and various components of MontyLingua governed by other licenses, all of which seems to be free. Since it is certainly licensed under GNU GPL, is it okay to go into Debian main? What could This is covered under GPL, but only for non-commercial use mean at all? Seo Sanghyeon
Re: MontyLingua license
On Tue, Aug 24, 2004 at 02:54:22PM +0900, Seo Sanghyeon wrote: Since it is certainly licensed under GNU GPL, is it okay to go into Debian main? What could This is covered under GPL, but only for non-commercial use mean at all? It means the copyright holder doesn't understand the GPL. This permission grant is self-contradictory, and can not safely be used at all. Unless there are other options available, I'd assume this software isn't distributable, even in non-free. -- Glenn Maynard
Re: MontyLingua license
O Martes, 24 de Agosto de 2004 ás 14:54:22 +0900, Seo Sanghyeon escribía: Since it is certainly licensed under GNU GPL, is it okay to go into Debian main? What could This is covered under GPL, but only for non-commercial use mean at all? I'd guess that it's just the usual association proprietary-commercial going on. Or it might be like Dansguardian's license [1]: GPL, but you cannot download Dansguardian from its page or an official mirror if you are going to use it for commercial purposes (you may download it from any site not associated with Dansguardian; that's how Debian distributes it). But I believe it is just the first case. Might require clarification from upstream if this piece of software were to be packaged, though. [1] http://dansguardian.org/?page=copyright2 -- Tarrío (Compostela)
Re: MontyLingua license
Seo Sanghyeon [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Now I am puzzled by its license: http://web.media.mit.edu/~hugo/montylingua/doc/License.txt Quote: If it is your intent to use this software for non-commercial, non-prioprietary[sic] purposes, such as for academic research purposes, this software is free and is covered under the GNU GPL License, given here: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.txt and in the APPENDIX of this document. If you are interested in this software for commercial purposes, commercial licensing information is available. Please email ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) for more information. The rest of the document is request for acknowledgement and various components of MontyLingua governed by other licenses, all of which seems to be free. Since it is certainly licensed under GNU GPL, is it okay to go into Debian main? What could This is covered under GPL, but only for non-commercial use mean at all? I've seen that sort of license before. While it may be worthwhile checking with the authors just to be sure, whenever I've seen this license before the authors have just been confused about the difference between commercial and closed-source. The intent has always been to say this software is distributed under the GPL; if you want to use it for some purpose with which the GPL is not compatible, we're happy to charge you money for an alternative license. If that is indeed what is intended here as well, that would be fine for Debian main, as it isn't any different than any other GPL-covered software from Debian's perspective. -- Russ Allbery ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/
Re: CeCILL again...
Glenn Maynard [EMAIL PROTECTED]: I think that it's fine to have licenses in other languages; I just think that there should always be an authoritative license in English, too. I don't think that's acceptable as a general rule. The licence is binding on the licensor, who should not have to be bound by a text in a language that they don't understand properly. I don't think it's acceptable to have a /usr/share/doc/foo/copyright that doesn't include a *binding* English version. The general case would lead to having those files in a dozen different languages, and nobody anywhere would actually be able to understand their rights (except for linguists); everyone would have to trust in a non-binding translation and the word of somebody they don't know that it's equivalent to the real terms. In practice almost everyone relies to some extent on other people's opinion of the licence even when it's written in their own language. Also, it seems rather unreliable to have a text in English that is to be interpreted under French law. There might be nasty surprises for everyone if such a thing ends up in court. To put it another way, even an English lawyer might prefer the text to be in French if it is to be interpreted under French law. Of course, if the licensor is happy to parallel-license under several language versions, I would encourage them to do so. It would be very helpful. I just wouldn't want to make it a Debian rule that they have to do that.
Re: Suggestions of David Nusinow, was: RPSL and DFSG-compliance - choice of venue
On 2004-08-24 04:08:34 +0100 Brian Nelson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Actually, looking at nm_pp.txt, it's not really clear to me what answers to 5a and 6 would be accepted, given the expressed views of some DDs. [...] I find it appalling that believe you think that some answers to 5a and 6 should not be accepted. Do you think Debian is some elite club where only certain opinions should be accepted? You quoted a huge chunk of my message and still made up something that I did not write to argue against! If you're not going to reply to anything in the message, it's probably best if you start another thread. [...] I accept *all* answers, even Really? *all*? So, what is the value of having these questions in the NM process? if the holier-than-thou folks on debian-legal would not approve. It is stupid to conclude that folks on debian-legal are holier-than-thou based on something you made up. I'm very worried that an AM engages in irrational debian-legal-bashing. -- MJR/slefMy Opinion Only and not of any group I know
Re: MontyLingua license
On 2004-08-24 06:54:22 +0100 Seo Sanghyeon [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: http://web.media.mit.edu/~hugo/montylingua/doc/License.txt [...] Since it is certainly licensed under GNU GPL, is it okay to go into Debian main? What could This is covered under GPL, but only for non-commercial use mean at all? I can't find that quote in the license file. Did you make it up? However, their comments on http://web.media.mit.edu/~hugo/montylingua/ make it look like it could be what they mean. Would you contact them to ask whether they really mean non-proprietary? More troublesome is the following notice, which appears to grant no permissions: [QUOTE] original datafiles are governed by the following MIT License: Copyright 1993 by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Pennsylvania. All rights reserved. THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED AS IS, AND M.I.T. MAKES NO REPRESENTATIONS OR WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED. By way of example, but not limitation, M.I.T. MAKES NO REPRESENTATIONS OR WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PARTICULAR PURPOSE OR THAT THE USE OF THE LICENSED SOFTWARE OR DOCUMENTATION WILL NOT INFRINGE ANY THIRD PARTY PATENTS, COPYRIGHTS, TRADEMARKS OR OTHER RIGHTS. [END QUOTE] morph.lex's licence looks similar to a BSD+advertising to me. I wonder about any combination effect with the GPL of the main software, though. xtag_morph_english.txt's licence looks like a simple non-copyleft. -- MJR/slefMy Opinion Only and not of any group I know http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ for creative copyleft computing Please email about: BT alternative for line rental+DSL; Education on SMEs+EU FP6; office filing that works fast
Re: CeCILL again...
On Tue, Aug 24, 2004 at 09:02:47AM +0100, Edmund GRIMLEY EVANS wrote: I think that it's fine to have licenses in other languages; I just think that there should always be an authoritative license in English, too. I don't think that's acceptable as a general rule. The licence is binding on the licensor, who should not have to be bound by a text in a language that they don't understand properly. The license is binding on the licensee, who should not have to be bound by a text in a language that they don't understand properly. (The only solution available to me, in that situation, is to not touch the software.) In practice almost everyone relies to some extent on other people's opinion of the licence even when it's written in their own language. The value of to some extent for a license in a different language is an order of magnitude higher. Also, the requirements that you know English well enough to read licenses in order to fully understand your rights to modify software in Debian is unavoidable. -- Glenn Maynard
Re: CeCILL again...
Glenn Maynard [EMAIL PROTECTED]: The license is binding on the licensee, Not in the same way, assuming it really is a licence, rather than a contract. who should not have to be bound by a text in a language that they don't understand properly. (The only solution available to me, in that situation, is to not touch the software.) Then you have a solution. Use it. But please don't try to force your solution on other people who may be perfectly happy, or even happier, with a licence in French.
Re: *** VIRUS ALERT *** Mail Delivery (failure debat@maxifoot.fr)
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Votre participation au 'Debat du Jeudi' Cher lecteur, Nous accusons réception de votre e-mail et nous vous remercions de votre participation au Débat du Jeudi de Maxifoot ! Votre message sera pris en compte dans les statistiques du débat. Nous essayons de publier le maximum de personnes, mais nous sommes obligés de limiter la longueur du débat, et tout le monde ne peut pas toujours être publié. Maxifoot vous propose un nouveau sujet de débat chaque mardi, et les résultats + réactions sont publiés chaque jeudi. A jeudi, pour découvrir le résultats du débat sur le site. L'Equipe de Maxifoot http://www.maxifoot.fr
Microsoft :-) Sender-ID Licence
The MARID Working Group of IETF (http://www.ietf.org/html.charters/marid-charter.html) is close to settle on its Sender-ID protocol. Microsoft claims patents on some parts of Sender-ID (http://www.imc.org/ietf-mxcomp/mail-archive/msg03495.html). Microsoft drafted a licence for those wishing to implement Sender-ID. I've found it small enough to be attached here but, otherwise, it is at http://www.imc.org/ietf-mxcomp/mail-archive/msg03496.html and has a FAQ at http://www.imc.org/ietf-mxcomp/mail-archive/msg03497.html. It is not common to have Microsoft licences in debian-legal :-) I do not send it here for a specific software but because the possibility of IETF standardizing a technology which depends on a patent with a non-free licence is worrying. I believe this licence is certainly GPL-incompatible and probably non-free. Other analyses of the licence: http://www.imc.org/ietf-mxcomp/mail-archive/msg03500.html and http://www.imc.org/ietf-mxcomp/mail-archive/msg03514.html. SenderID_License-Agreement.pdf Description: Adobe PDF document
Re: Suggestions of David Nusinow, was: RPSL and DFSG-compliance - choice of venue
On Mon, Aug 23, 2004 at 01:16:06PM -0700, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The debian-legal mailing list is often bashed because it repreresents an extreme point of view relative to Debian proper. Being interested in licensing issues is extreme? That's quite a strange thing to claim. particularly when it comes from people who don't participate in its discussions. At any rate, I'm not saying we need to make the PP process turn our NMs into legal experts. I *am* saying we need to educate them that legal issues, even in Free Software, are sufficiently complex that expertise is actually required. Armchair quarterbacking from a position of ignorance Many folks see debian-legal as armchair laywering from a position of ignorance. How many participants are attorneys? Who cares? Being an attorney does not give you any special ability to interpret the DFSG. Also, turning the question around the other way: How many Debian developers are CS graduates and professional programmers? How many AMs are qualified teachers? While these qualifications have their use, they aren't necessary here. You don't have to be an attorney to understand the law, only to practice it. -- .''`. ** Debian GNU/Linux ** | Andrew Suffield : :' : http://www.debian.org/ | `. `' | `- -- | signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Suggestions of David Nusinow, was: RPSL and DFSG-compliance - choice of venue
Andrew Suffield [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Mon, Aug 23, 2004 at 01:16:06PM -0700, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The debian-legal mailing list is often bashed because it repreresents an extreme point of view relative to Debian proper. Being interested in licensing issues is extreme? That's quite a strange thing to claim. The proportion of the population of debian-legal who believe that the patch clause exemption in DFSG 4 is a grave mistake or that the GPL is only free because of DFSG 10 seems greater than in the developer population at large. That seems like a reasonable approximation of extreme. -- Matthew Garrett | [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Microsoft :-) Sender-ID Licence
On Tue, Aug 24, 2004 at 02:20:10PM +0200, Stephane Bortzmeyer wrote: The MARID Working Group of IETF (http://www.ietf.org/html.charters/marid-charter.html) is close to settle on its Sender-ID protocol. Microsoft claims patents on some parts of Sender-ID (http://www.imc.org/ietf-mxcomp/mail-archive/msg03495.html). Microsoft drafted a licence for those wishing to implement Sender-ID. I've found it small enough to be attached here but, otherwise, it is at http://www.imc.org/ietf-mxcomp/mail-archive/msg03496.html and has a FAQ at http://www.imc.org/ietf-mxcomp/mail-archive/msg03497.html. This isn't a license, it's a bloody contract. You have to sign it and return it to MS before it takes effect, and you can't redistribute (or modify) until you do that. I can't imagine how that could be free. On the other hand, I can't imagine how MS could have any valid patents on such a simple thing. So it's quite possible that the whole thing is a load of bull. This also contains a choice-of-venue clause which explicitly denies all the escape methods people have suggested so far. And it's a bloody PDF. -- .''`. ** Debian GNU/Linux ** | Andrew Suffield : :' : http://www.debian.org/ | `. `' | `- -- | signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Suggestions of David Nusinow, was: RPSL and DFSG-compliance - choice of venue
On Mon, Aug 23, 2004 at 08:08:34PM -0700, Brian Nelson wrote: Actually, looking at nm_pp.txt, it's not really clear to me what answers to 5a and 6 would be accepted, given the expressed views of some DDs. Anyway, we probably need some questions about the more interesting things like patent termination clauses or copyright-enforced trademarks (debian logo?), as they are pretty common problems. I'll have to let some of the gurus give good examples to start, but I'll help if I can. I find it appalling that believe you think that some answers to 5a and 6 should not be accepted. Do you think Debian is some elite club where only certain opinions should be accepted? Yes. That's the whole point of the NM process. If this were not true then it would be unnecessary. The following is an example of an unacceptable opinion for a Debian applicant: 5a. The GNU Free Documentaion License (FDL) has been heavily discussed on debian-legal recently. Read http://people.debian.org/~srivasta/Position_Statement.html and briefly explain how you feel about the including documents licensed under the FDL in main and what consequences of this position might be for Debian. Debian should ignore licenses and include everything in main. -- .''`. ** Debian GNU/Linux ** | Andrew Suffield : :' : http://www.debian.org/ | `. `' | `- -- | signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Suggestions of David Nusinow, was: RPSL and DFSG-compliance - choice of venue
* Andrew Suffield: Yes. That's the whole point of the NM process. If this were not true then it would be unnecessary. The following is an example of an unacceptable opinion for a Debian applicant: 5a. The GNU Free Documentaion License (FDL) has been heavily discussed on debian-legal recently. Read http://people.debian.org/~srivasta/Position_Statement.html and briefly explain how you feel about the including documents licensed under the FDL in main and what consequences of this position might be for Debian. Debian should ignore licenses and include everything in main. It's too short to be a valid answer, IMHO, but there's a certain line of thinking perfectly acceptable among DDs which would completely justify such a hyperbolic comment.
Re: NEW ocaml licence proposal by upstream, will be part of the 3.08.1 release going into sarge.
Francesco, I think you're misinterpreting Sven's intent with the more permissive license. The idea is not that you or I would ever see such a thing; rather, INRIA sells licenses to Ocaml. You pay them $10k or so, and you get a permissive license. If you don't pay, you get the QPL. As far as the provided part goes: the idea there is that INRIA will distribute my modifications under their permissive-for-sale license and the QPL -- though the QPL version may only be distributed to their pet cats, for all I know. The recipients of the permissive-for-sale versions will make further modifications and sell the result, and I may be completely unaware that I own the copyright on part of something I later buy from them. Those later recipients are not under any obligation to release copies under the QPL. -Brian -- Brian Sniffen [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Suggestions of David Nusinow, was: RPSL and DFSG-compliance - choice of venue
Matthew Garrett [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: The proportion of the population of debian-legal who believe that the patch clause exemption in DFSG 4 is a grave mistake or that the GPL is only free because of DFSG 10 seems greater than in the developer population at large. That seems like a reasonable approximation of extreme. And I suspect the population of lisp maintainers who believe that the feature macros are a grave mistake or that the path-name standards are only still there because X3J13 insisted is greater than in the developer population at large. That's because experts tend to have detailed opinions about their field of expertise. -- Brian Sniffen [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Microsoft :-) Sender-ID Licence
On Tue, Aug 24, 2004 at 01:54:16PM +0100, Andrew Suffield [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote a message of 60 lines which said: On the other hand, I can't imagine how MS could have any valid patents on such a simple thing. So it's quite possible that the whole thing is a load of bull. It is clearly the crux of the problem. If the licence is unacceptable (many people think it is), what the IETF should do? 1) Go ahead and ignore what is probably a futile patent (like patents on hypertext or on encoding of a session ID in the URL). Problem: many implementors will fear to proceed in such an uncertain situation. 2) Drop everything which has a claim (not even a granted patent) on it. Problem: big companies owners like Microsoft therefore have a veto on what the IETF can standardize or not. And it's a bloody PDF. Keep cool, it could have been a MS-Word. (apt-get install xpdf pdftotext SenderID_License-Agreement.pdf)
Re: Suggestions of David Nusinow, was: RPSL and DFSG-compliance - choice of venue
Andrew Suffield writes: On Mon, Aug 23, 2004 at 01:16:06PM -0700, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The debian-legal mailing list is often bashed because it repreresents an extreme point of view relative to Debian proper. Being interested in licensing issues is extreme? That's quite a strange thing to claim. And it's not what he's claiming at all, as you well know. debian-legal currently includes a large number of people who are on the more extreme end of the range of licensing opinions expressed within Debian. Many folks see debian-legal as armchair laywering from a position of ignorance. How many participants are attorneys? Who cares? Being an attorney does not give you any special ability to interpret the DFSG. Also, turning the question around the other way: How many Debian developers are CS graduates and professional programmers? How many AMs are qualified teachers? While these qualifications have their use, they aren't necessary here. You don't have to be an attorney to understand the law, only to practice it. But it's a great help in terms of understanding the meanings of lots of the *legal* license terms that are bandied about. And how they might be applied in court, with precedent. And in this case professional training is much more important than in the others you named IMHO. -- Steve McIntyre, Cambridge, UK.[EMAIL PROTECTED] Into the distance, a ribbon of black Stretched to the point of no turning back
Re: Suggestions of David Nusinow, was: RPSL and DFSG-compliance - choice of venue
On Tue, Aug 24, 2004 at 01:41:07PM +0100, Andrew Suffield wrote: On Mon, Aug 23, 2004 at 08:08:34PM -0700, Brian Nelson wrote: Actually, looking at nm_pp.txt, it's not really clear to me what answers to 5a and 6 would be accepted, given the expressed views of some DDs. Anyway, we probably need some questions about the more interesting things like patent termination clauses or copyright-enforced trademarks (debian logo?), as they are pretty common problems. I'll have to let some of the gurus give good examples to start, but I'll help if I can. I find it appalling that believe you think that some answers to 5a and 6 should not be accepted. Do you think Debian is some elite club where only certain opinions should be accepted? Yes. That's the whole point of the NM process. If this were not true then it would be unnecessary. The following is an example of an unacceptable opinion for a Debian applicant: 5a. The GNU Free Documentaion License (FDL) has been heavily discussed on debian-legal recently. Read http://people.debian.org/~srivasta/Position_Statement.html and briefly explain how you feel about the including documents licensed under the FDL in main and what consequences of this position might be for Debian. Debian should ignore licenses and include everything in main. Sure, just move the main archive out of licence encoumbered country, and that would be all right. :) Friendly, Sven Luther
Re: NEW ocaml licence proposal by upstream, will be part of the 3.08.1 release going into sarge.
On Mon, Aug 23, 2004 at 11:12:52PM +0200, Francesco Poli wrote: On Mon, 23 Aug 2004 09:34:00 +0200 Sven Luther wrote: Notice that in the ocaml case, it is well possible that the additional licences is more near the BSD, since it allows for third party to make modifications under a more permisive licence than the LGPL/QPL duo. So, would a wording where QPL 3b is modified to say that it may be relicenced under the QPL and under a more permisive licence be acceptable ? IMHO, it would not improve the modified-QPL freeness. Why not ? It would say : upstream can redistribute under the QPL and any other licence that is considered DFSG-Free, including the BSD licence. What do you find non-free in this ? It however would really improve the ocaml freeness, if ocaml itself were dual-licensed under a 2-clause BSD license (or X11 or Expat or...) besides the QPL. In that case Debian could choose to distribute under the 2-clause BSD license (or X11 or...) and everyone could be happy... Notice that the situation is not exactly the same. I didn't say the ocaml would be dual licenced, but that upstream has the right to distribute your changes under some random free licence, including the 2-clause BSD one, to the people they chose to. Not necessarily the world at large though. Friendly, Sven Luther
Re: CeCILL again...
On Mon, Aug 23, 2004 at 03:59:41PM -0400, Glenn Maynard wrote: On Mon, Aug 23, 2004 at 02:39:22PM +0200, Nicolas CANIART wrote: (Yes, the clause repeats itself; I have no idea why.) At http://cecill.info/faq.en.html#clarification parapraph 2, it is said that this is a translation bug and it will be corrected in the next version (no date given ...) Noting licensing translation problems in a FAQ instead of actually fixing them doesn't inspire confidence in these people (no more than the fact that they put their licensing terms in PDF ...) Well, it will be fixed in the next release of the licence version, what more do you want ? I believe they have to run it through a comitee or something first, and i know for sure that part of their personal in in vacation right now (as the email autoresponder to the cecill email address shows). Friendly, Sven Luther
Re: Suggestions of David Nusinow, was: RPSL and DFSG-compliance - choice of venue
On Tue, Aug 24, 2004 at 04:53:24PM +0200, Sven Luther wrote: Debian should ignore licenses and include everything in main. Sure, just move the main archive out of licence encoumbered country, and that would be all right. :) Err, forget what i said. i thought of patents, not licences. Friendly, Sven Luther
Re: Suggestions of David Nusinow, was: RPSL and DFSG-compliance - choice of venue
On 2004-08-24 15:01:37 +0100 Steve McIntyre [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: currently includes a large number of people who are on the more extreme end of the range of licensing opinions expressed within Debian. I find the concept of the more extreme end of the range odd. What, there's only one end that's extreme? Personally, I suspect that both extremes are more common here compared to the general debian population, but I don't find it worth trying to measure just now. -- MJR/slefMy Opinion Only and not of any group I know
Re: Suggestions of David Nusinow, was: RPSL and DFSG-compliance - choice of venue
Brian Thomas Sniffen [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: And I suspect the population of lisp maintainers who believe that the feature macros are a grave mistake or that the path-name standards are only still there because X3J13 insisted is greater than in the developer population at large. That's because experts tend to have detailed opinions about their field of expertise. You don't appear to be arguing against the idea that debian-legal is extreme compared to the rest of the project. -- Matthew Garrett | [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Measuring divergence, was: Suggestions of David Nusinow
On 2004-08-24 14:10:42 +0100 Matthew Garrett [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The proportion of the population of debian-legal who believe that the patch clause exemption in DFSG 4 is a grave mistake or that the GPL is only free because of DFSG 10 seems greater than in the developer population at large. That seems like a reasonable approximation of extreme. I see how you could measure this appearance: for example, by using the number of unique posters/developers making such statements compared to the total number of posters/developers; but I'm not sure of the technicalities of doing it. Can you post the methodology and results you used, please? It will be very useful for some other situations. -- MJR/slefMy Opinion Only and not of any group I know http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ for creative copyleft computing
Re: NEW ocaml licence proposal by upstream, will be part of the 3.08.1 release going into sarge.
Sven Luther [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: On Mon, Aug 23, 2004 at 11:12:52PM +0200, Francesco Poli wrote: On Mon, 23 Aug 2004 09:34:00 +0200 Sven Luther wrote: Notice that in the ocaml case, it is well possible that the additional licences is more near the BSD, since it allows for third party to make modifications under a more permisive licence than the LGPL/QPL duo. So, would a wording where QPL 3b is modified to say that it may be relicenced under the QPL and under a more permisive licence be acceptable ? IMHO, it would not improve the modified-QPL freeness. Why not ? It would say : upstream can redistribute under the QPL and any other licence that is considered DFSG-Free, including the BSD licence. What do you find non-free in this ? It compels me to grant upstream a right which upstream will not grant me. If that were symmetric, I would not object to this under DFSG 3. Depending on phrasing, I might still find it objectionable, but I'd have to think long and hard about the differences between compelled grant of license to recipients, compelled grant of license to a third party, and compelled transmission of data. The first is free, the third is not, and the second... well, I'm really not sure. It however would really improve the ocaml freeness, if ocaml itself were dual-licensed under a 2-clause BSD license (or X11 or Expat or...) besides the QPL. In that case Debian could choose to distribute under the 2-clause BSD license (or X11 or...) and everyone could be happy... Notice that the situation is not exactly the same. I didn't say the ocaml would be dual licenced, but that upstream has the right to distribute your changes under some random free licence, including the 2-clause BSD one, to the people they chose to. Not necessarily the world at large though. But of course those people could distribute it further, under their permissive license, right? Because if they can't, then it's not free. So this would at least allow somebody to buy and fork Ocaml into a free-Ocaml and a QPL'd Ocaml. -Brian -- Brian Sniffen [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: NEW ocaml licence proposal by upstream, will be part of the 3.08.1 release going into sarge.
Matthew Garrett [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Brian Thomas Sniffen [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Matthew Garrett [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: On the other hand, the current phrasing has weird corner cases. A hyopthetical license that said This code is under a BSD-style license. If you downloaded it via FTP, remove this license and attach the GNU GPL version 2 or higher probably /ought/ to be free, since there's never a situation where it's not at least the GPL. But DFSG 3 appears to prevent it. I don't think that's what it was intended to do, but the only person who knows is Bruce. But with that license, we can just jump through the hoops and distribute it under the GPL, which is free. We can't take advantage of wacky privileges the author gives, but that's OK. Sigh. Yes. Postulate a similar license whose hoops we can't jump through. Should it be free? If not, why not? I can't imagine such a thing that isn't very clearly free or very clearly non-free for lots of other reasons. Can you come up with an example? Many of the imagined licenses on this list seem to be tricornered squares -- perhaps a sign that our terminology isn't good enough (i.e., orthogonal) yet. -Brian -- Brian Sniffen [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: NEW ocaml licence proposal by upstream, will be part of the 3.08.1 release going into sarge.
On Tue, Aug 24, 2004 at 11:07:36AM -0400, Brian Thomas Sniffen wrote: Sven Luther [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: On Mon, Aug 23, 2004 at 11:12:52PM +0200, Francesco Poli wrote: On Mon, 23 Aug 2004 09:34:00 +0200 Sven Luther wrote: Notice that in the ocaml case, it is well possible that the additional licences is more near the BSD, since it allows for third party to make modifications under a more permisive licence than the LGPL/QPL duo. So, would a wording where QPL 3b is modified to say that it may be relicenced under the QPL and under a more permisive licence be acceptable ? IMHO, it would not improve the modified-QPL freeness. Why not ? It would say : upstream can redistribute under the QPL and any other licence that is considered DFSG-Free, including the BSD licence. What do you find non-free in this ? It compels me to grant upstream a right which upstream will not grant me. If that were symmetric, I would not object to this under DFSG 3. Well, take the example of the BSD for example ? It is in no way symmetric. Depending on phrasing, I might still find it objectionable, but I'd have to think long and hard about the differences between compelled grant of license to recipients, compelled grant of license to a third party, and compelled transmission of data. The first is free, the third is not, and the second... well, I'm really not sure. Notice that nowhere in the QPL does it say that the original author can compell the patch from you, he can only get it freely from either you if you publicly distribute it, or from one of the chain of people you distribute it too. It however would really improve the ocaml freeness, if ocaml itself were dual-licensed under a 2-clause BSD license (or X11 or Expat or...) besides the QPL. In that case Debian could choose to distribute under the 2-clause BSD license (or X11 or...) and everyone could be happy... Notice that the situation is not exactly the same. I didn't say the ocaml would be dual licenced, but that upstream has the right to distribute your changes under some random free licence, including the 2-clause BSD one, to the people they chose to. Not necessarily the world at large though. But of course those people could distribute it further, under their permissive license, right? Because if they can't, then it's not free. So this would at least allow somebody to buy and fork Ocaml into a free-Ocaml and a QPL'd Ocaml. Indded. Now, this is no different than the pure BSD stuff, so if the BSD is free, what is the difference with this one ? Friendly, Sven Luther
Re: Suggestions of David Nusinow, was: RPSL and DFSG-compliance - choice of venue
On Mon, Aug 23, 2004 at 03:12:51AM -0500, Branden Robinson wrote: I certainly agree. The thrust of my comments was to make sure NMs understand that licensing issues are often difficult, and that if one isn't prepared to wrestle with them oneself, one needs to place more trust in one's peers who do. This is an important point which I fully agree with (more below). I am dismayed and exasperated by the recent trend of bashing the debian-legal list collectively, particularly when it comes from people who don't participate in its discussions. Maybe there is some sort of Real Hackers Don't Need Debian-Legal elitism going on; maybe it's just good old-fashioned fear of what one doesn't understand. I get the feeling that the elitism as you call it is more related to the above. Perhaps there is some feeling that understanding licensing issues isn't difficult (which would be a misplaced feeling) but more importantly I think that those who have placed their trust in their peers feel that their trust might be violated. It's certaintly how I feel in some respects and it's how I read many of the other critics of -legal, both past and present, as well. That said, I think you're on to the solution by making sure people are aware that these issues are difficult. At any rate, I'm not saying we need to make the PP process turn our NMs into legal experts. I *am* saying we need to educate them that legal issues, even in Free Software, are sufficiently complex that expertise is actually required. Armchair quarterbacking from a position of ignorance is antisocial and corrosive to our organization. Agreed, and this approach would get rid of my reservations about simply pointing NM's to -legal for everything. My worry there was that we would either be turning prospective DD's in to robots or that we would be pointing them to so-called experts who haven't studied the issues but are more than happy to enforce their views on to others. I'm trying to come up with an effective outline for good NM questions to accomplish this. Here's what I've got so far, and I'd love more input, especially in terms of actual licenses that people with more experience in this area think are exemplary of the problems inherent in license analysis. - Each question is based on some actual license. This license is meant to highlite one specific issue, either codified explicitly in the DFSG or to be inferred from it. - Each question includes at least one link to the mailing list archive where the license was discussed, so that the NM can read what has been said about the license. The license should be picked so that the discussion isn't too long (the QPL would be a very bad choice, for example) and possibly with particularly good posts. If anyone remembers any very good posts that clearly explain and/or define a point, these would also potentially be noted in the question, or brought up by the AM after the question is answered. - The questions should be a mix of both obviously non-free, obviously free, and less obviously in either camp. For the last category, it should be stressed by the AM at some point, either in the question or the answer, that the boundaries are not so clear cut and that these can be very difficult issues. - I think around 4 to 7 licenses would be a good number to have. There were 4 when I went through NM, and I have to look them over again (along with my answers) so I don't want to comment on them right now. Anyhow, that's what little I've got so far. I'm hoping to attack this in a more concrete manner, with actual licenses and writing after release. - David Nusinow
Re: Suggestions of David Nusinow, was: RPSL and DFSG-compliance - choice of venue
On Tue, Aug 24, 2004 at 03:01:37PM +0100, Steve McIntyre wrote: Andrew Suffield writes: here. You don't have to be an attorney to understand the law, only to practice it. But it's a great help in terms of understanding the meanings of lots of the *legal* license terms that are bandied about. And how they might be applied in court, with precedent. And in this case professional training is much more important than in the others you named IMHO. My only issue with this line of argument is that this is a volunteer project. If we don't have volunteer lawyers to do this work for us, we make due with what we've got, the same way we do everything else. - David Nusinow
Re: NEW ocaml licence proposal by upstream, will be part of the 3.08.1 release going into sarge.
On Tue, Aug 24, 2004 at 11:48:13AM -0400, Brian Thomas Sniffen wrote: Sven Luther [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Why not ? It would say : upstream can redistribute under the QPL and any other licence that is considered DFSG-Free, including the BSD licence. What do you find non-free in this ? It compels me to grant upstream a right which upstream will not grant me. If that were symmetric, I would not object to this under DFSG 3. Well, take the example of the BSD for example ? It is in no way symmetric. Indeed, the BSD is no not symmetric. It is more permissive than a copyleft. *Compelling* the grant of a BSD license to others is less permissive than a symmetric license: I have to give up more than I get. Depending on phrasing, I might still find it objectionable, but I'd have to think long and hard about the differences between compelled grant of license to recipients, compelled grant of license to a third party, and compelled transmission of data. The first is free, the third is not, and the second... well, I'm really not sure. Notice that nowhere in the QPL does it say that the original author can compell the patch from you, he can only get it freely from either you if you publicly distribute it, or from one of the chain of people you distribute it too. You mean other than QPL 6, right? Well, QPL6c was removed, right ? And QPL clause 6 and QPL clause 3 and 4 apply to different cases of software, as we previously discussed. Yes, the OCaml license I've last seen has no compelled transmission of data, since it overrides QPL 6. I just provided those three examples -- copyleft, compelled asymmetric licensing, and compelled transmission -- as examples of a range with one end certainly free and one end certainly non-free. Ok. It however would really improve the ocaml freeness, if ocaml itself were dual-licensed under a 2-clause BSD license (or X11 or Expat or...) besides the QPL. In that case Debian could choose to distribute under the 2-clause BSD license (or X11 or...) and everyone could be happy... Notice that the situation is not exactly the same. I didn't say the ocaml would be dual licenced, but that upstream has the right to distribute your changes under some random free licence, including the 2-clause BSD one, to the people they chose to. Not necessarily the world at large though. But of course those people could distribute it further, under their permissive license, right? Because if they can't, then it's not free. So this would at least allow somebody to buy and fork Ocaml into a free-Ocaml and a QPL'd Ocaml. Indded. Now, this is no different than the pure BSD stuff, so if the BSD is free, what is the difference with this one ? This is quite different from pure BSD stuff. If X gives Y code under the BSD license, Y can modify it and do as he pleases, including giving it and a copy of the license to Z. If A gives B code under this QPL' you mention, B must give A a license to distribute B's code under the QPL, and under some other free license. Yep, he has the licence, but beforehe can distribute it, he has to get hold of it. In the pure BSD case, or dual QPL/BSD case , if he gets hold of a BSDish version, he can do exactly the same thing as with the current QPL. But if A then gives C a license to A's code plus B's code under the BSD license, C has freedom with respect to the code and could freely contribute it to Debian. If we got the Caml code that way, that would be great. Indeed, but this i snot going to happen. I also would 100x prefer a GPLed ocaml over a BSSDish one though. o Friendly, Sven Luther
Re: NEW ocaml licence proposal by upstream, will be part of the 3.08.1 release going into sarge.
Sven Luther [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Why not ? It would say : upstream can redistribute under the QPL and any other licence that is considered DFSG-Free, including the BSD licence. What do you find non-free in this ? It compels me to grant upstream a right which upstream will not grant me. If that were symmetric, I would not object to this under DFSG 3. Well, take the example of the BSD for example ? It is in no way symmetric. Indeed, the BSD is no not symmetric. It is more permissive than a copyleft. *Compelling* the grant of a BSD license to others is less permissive than a symmetric license: I have to give up more than I get. Depending on phrasing, I might still find it objectionable, but I'd have to think long and hard about the differences between compelled grant of license to recipients, compelled grant of license to a third party, and compelled transmission of data. The first is free, the third is not, and the second... well, I'm really not sure. Notice that nowhere in the QPL does it say that the original author can compell the patch from you, he can only get it freely from either you if you publicly distribute it, or from one of the chain of people you distribute it too. You mean other than QPL 6, right? Yes, the OCaml license I've last seen has no compelled transmission of data, since it overrides QPL 6. I just provided those three examples -- copyleft, compelled asymmetric licensing, and compelled transmission -- as examples of a range with one end certainly free and one end certainly non-free. It however would really improve the ocaml freeness, if ocaml itself were dual-licensed under a 2-clause BSD license (or X11 or Expat or...) besides the QPL. In that case Debian could choose to distribute under the 2-clause BSD license (or X11 or...) and everyone could be happy... Notice that the situation is not exactly the same. I didn't say the ocaml would be dual licenced, but that upstream has the right to distribute your changes under some random free licence, including the 2-clause BSD one, to the people they chose to. Not necessarily the world at large though. But of course those people could distribute it further, under their permissive license, right? Because if they can't, then it's not free. So this would at least allow somebody to buy and fork Ocaml into a free-Ocaml and a QPL'd Ocaml. Indded. Now, this is no different than the pure BSD stuff, so if the BSD is free, what is the difference with this one ? This is quite different from pure BSD stuff. If X gives Y code under the BSD license, Y can modify it and do as he pleases, including giving it and a copy of the license to Z. If A gives B code under this QPL' you mention, B must give A a license to distribute B's code under the QPL, and under some other free license. But if A then gives C a license to A's code plus B's code under the BSD license, C has freedom with respect to the code and could freely contribute it to Debian. If we got the Caml code that way, that would be great. -Brian -- Brian Sniffen [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Suggestions of David Nusinow, was: RPSL and DFSG-compliance - choice of venue
On Tue, Aug 24, 2004 at 03:01:37PM +0100, Steve McIntyre wrote: Andrew Suffield writes: On Mon, Aug 23, 2004 at 01:16:06PM -0700, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The debian-legal mailing list is often bashed because it repreresents an extreme point of view relative to Debian proper. Being interested in licensing issues is extreme? That's quite a strange thing to claim. And it's not what he's claiming at all, as you well know. debian-legal currently includes a large number of people who are on the more extreme end of the range of licensing opinions expressed within Debian. Irrelevant. debian-legal represents only the group who are interested in licensing issues. Obviously that will include extreme ends, because anybody who is not interested by definition cannot be such a person - if they exist anywhere, they will do so here. That's a stunningly useless observation. Classifying an entire group as being equivalent to the person in that group who you personally find most objectionable - well, that's just dumb. But it's a great help in terms of understanding the meanings of lots of the *legal* license terms that are bandied about. And how they might be applied in court, with precedent. And in this case professional training is much more important than in the others you named IMHO. I see absolutely no justification for that opinion. It seems equally valid for all the other cases. -- .''`. ** Debian GNU/Linux ** | Andrew Suffield : :' : http://www.debian.org/ | `. `' | `- -- | signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: NEW ocaml licence proposal by upstream, will be part of the 3.08.1 release going into sarge.
Sven Luther [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Notice that nowhere in the QPL does it say that the original author can compell the patch from you, he can only get it freely from either you if you publicly distribute it, or from one of the chain of people you distribute it too. You mean other than QPL 6, right? Well, QPL6c was removed, right ? And QPL clause 6 and QPL clause 3 and 4 apply to different cases of software, as we previously discussed. QPL 6c ws not removed. It's overridden for the specific case of Ocaml, but that doesn't help the other QPL-licensed software in Debian. I don't think there's much, but it's all important to somebody. BSD license, C has freedom with respect to the code and could freely contribute it to Debian. If we got the Caml code that way, that would be great. Indeed, but this is not going to happen. I also would 100x prefer a GPLed ocaml over a BSSDish one though. It's hard to call the GPL a more free license than the QPL -- even if the QPL is called non-free for the sake of argument. They provide different freedoms under different conditions. Licenses are only a partially ordered set. -Brian -- Brian Sniffen [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Measuring divergence, was: Suggestions of David Nusinow
MJ Ray [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I see how you could measure this appearance: for example, by using the number of unique posters/developers making such statements compared to the total number of posters/developers; but I'm not sure of the technicalities of doing it. Can you post the methodology and results you used, please? It will be very useful for some other situations. It's an impression. Hence seems rather than is. -- Matthew Garrett | [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: NEW ocaml licence proposal by upstream, will be part of the 3.08.1 release going into sarge.
On Tue, Aug 24, 2004 at 12:13:31PM -0400, Brian Thomas Sniffen wrote: Sven Luther [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Notice that nowhere in the QPL does it say that the original author can compell the patch from you, he can only get it freely from either you if you publicly distribute it, or from one of the chain of people you distribute it too. You mean other than QPL 6, right? Well, QPL6c was removed, right ? And QPL clause 6 and QPL clause 3 and 4 apply to different cases of software, as we previously discussed. QPL 6c ws not removed. It's overridden for the specific case of Ocaml, but that doesn't help the other QPL-licensed software in Debian. I don't think there's much, but it's all important to somebody. Then don't speak about it in the new ocaml licence thread. BSD license, C has freedom with respect to the code and could freely contribute it to Debian. If we got the Caml code that way, that would be great. Indeed, but this is not going to happen. I also would 100x prefer a GPLed ocaml over a BSSDish one though. It's hard to call the GPL a more free license than the QPL -- even if the QPL is called non-free for the sake of argument. They provide different freedoms under different conditions. Licenses are only a partially ordered set. Indeed. i was just expressing my personal preference. Friendly, Sven Luther
Re: NEW ocaml licence proposal by upstream, will be part of the 3.08.1 release going into sarge.
What do you find non-free in this ? On Tue, Aug 24, 2004 at 11:07:36AM -0400, Brian Thomas Sniffen wrote: It compels me to grant upstream a right which upstream will not grant me. If that were symmetric, I would not object to this under DFSG 3. Same condition exists with the GPL. [The GPL can be replaced by later versions from upstream.] Then again, I understand that some people object to the GPL, too. -- Raul
Re: NEW ocaml licence proposal by upstream, will be part of the 3.08.1 release going into sarge.
Sven Luther [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: On Tue, Aug 24, 2004 at 12:13:31PM -0400, Brian Thomas Sniffen wrote: Sven Luther [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Notice that nowhere in the QPL does it say that the original author can compell the patch from you, he can only get it freely from either you if you publicly distribute it, or from one of the chain of people you distribute it too. You mean other than QPL 6, right? Well, QPL6c was removed, right ? And QPL clause 6 and QPL clause 3 and 4 apply to different cases of software, as we previously discussed. QPL 6c ws not removed. It's overridden for the specific case of Ocaml, but that doesn't help the other QPL-licensed software in Debian. I don't think there's much, but it's all important to somebody. Then don't speak about it in the new ocaml licence thread. Sven, you're the one who said the QPL had nothing about compelled transmission of source. That's not true. The newest Ocaml license has nothing about that, but the Ocaml license is not the QPL. It's very different. BSD license, C has freedom with respect to the code and could freely contribute it to Debian. If we got the Caml code that way, that would be great. Indeed, but this is not going to happen. I also would 100x prefer a GPLed ocaml over a BSSDish one though. It's hard to call the GPL a more free license than the QPL -- even if the QPL is called non-free for the sake of argument. They provide different freedoms under different conditions. Licenses are only a partially ordered set. Indeed. i was just expressing my personal preference. I understand, and even agree. But I was referring to your proposed QPL or any more free license -- and the GPL probably wouldn't qualify. I can't see INRIA going for a QPL/GPL split either, sadly. -Brian -- Brian Sniffen [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: NEW ocaml licence proposal by upstream, will be part of the 3.08.1 release going into sarge.
On Tue, Aug 24, 2004 at 12:30:31PM -0400, Brian Thomas Sniffen wrote: Sven Luther [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: On Tue, Aug 24, 2004 at 12:13:31PM -0400, Brian Thomas Sniffen wrote: Sven Luther [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Notice that nowhere in the QPL does it say that the original author can compell the patch from you, he can only get it freely from either you if you publicly distribute it, or from one of the chain of people you distribute it too. You mean other than QPL 6, right? Well, QPL6c was removed, right ? And QPL clause 6 and QPL clause 3 and 4 apply to different cases of software, as we previously discussed. QPL 6c ws not removed. It's overridden for the specific case of Ocaml, but that doesn't help the other QPL-licensed software in Debian. I don't think there's much, but it's all important to somebody. Then don't speak about it in the new ocaml licence thread. Sven, you're the one who said the QPL had nothing about compelled transmission of source. That's not true. The newest Ocaml license has nothing about that, but the Ocaml license is not the QPL. It's very different. Sure, and i apologize for that. BSD license, C has freedom with respect to the code and could freely contribute it to Debian. If we got the Caml code that way, that would be great. Indeed, but this is not going to happen. I also would 100x prefer a GPLed ocaml over a BSSDish one though. It's hard to call the GPL a more free license than the QPL -- even if the QPL is called non-free for the sake of argument. They provide different freedoms under different conditions. Licenses are only a partially ordered set. Indeed. i was just expressing my personal preference. I understand, and even agree. But I was referring to your proposed QPL or any more free license -- and the GPL probably wouldn't qualify. I can't see INRIA going for a QPL/GPL split either, sadly. Ok, what about QPL or DFSG-free licence ? Friendly, Sven Luther
Re: New MySQL Free/Libre and Open Source Software (FLOSS) Exception licence.... (re #242449)
On Tue, Aug 10, 2004 at 12:55:05AM +0200, Christian Hammers wrote: MySQL addressed this issue now by making yet another version of their FLOSS Exception license public which should resolve all problems. About the new issue, it could be of interest to understand if OpenSSL license can be considered as covered by this FLOSS Exception (1). Can it be considered so on the basis of Open Source Definitioni v 1.9? (2) http://www.mysql.com/products/licensing/foss-exception.html (1) http://www.opensource.org/docs/definition.php (2) -- Francesco P. Lovergine
Re: Suggestions of David Nusinow, was: RPSL and DFSG-compliance - choice of venue
On Tue, Aug 24, 2004 at 10:09:02AM +0100, MJ Ray wrote: On 2004-08-24 04:08:34 +0100 Brian Nelson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [...] I accept *all* answers, even Really? *all*? So, what is the value of having these questions in the NM process? As I said, to ensure the applicants understand the issues involved. -- You win again, gravity!
Re: Suggestions of David Nusinow, was: RPSL and DFSG-compliance - choice of venue
Matthew Garrett [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Brian Thomas Sniffen [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: And I suspect the population of lisp maintainers who believe that the feature macros are a grave mistake or that the path-name standards are only still there because X3J13 insisted is greater than in the developer population at large. That's because experts tend to have detailed opinions about their field of expertise. You don't appear to be arguing against the idea that debian-legal is extreme compared to the rest of the project. I'm arguing that what you perceive as extremism is simply the presence of knowledge -- sure, the debian-legal regulars have opinions about licenses. The X Strike Force probably has opinions about windowing systems and weird architectures. That doesn't make XSF or D-L extremists, though. To characterize anyone with knowledge and the reasoned opinions that spring from it as an extremist is unwise; to dismiss them because of this extremism is to restrict yourself to the opinions of the unwise. -Brian -- Brian Sniffen [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Suggestions of David Nusinow, was: RPSL and DFSG-compliance - choice of venue
On Tue, Aug 24, 2004 at 01:41:07PM +0100, Andrew Suffield wrote: On Mon, Aug 23, 2004 at 08:08:34PM -0700, Brian Nelson wrote: Actually, looking at nm_pp.txt, it's not really clear to me what answers to 5a and 6 would be accepted, given the expressed views of some DDs. Anyway, we probably need some questions about the more interesting things like patent termination clauses or copyright-enforced trademarks (debian logo?), as they are pretty common problems. I'll have to let some of the gurus give good examples to start, but I'll help if I can. I find it appalling that believe you think that some answers to 5a and 6 should not be accepted. Do you think Debian is some elite club where only certain opinions should be accepted? Yes. That's the whole point of the NM process. If this were not true then it would be unnecessary. I thought the point was to find technically competent people to contribute to Debian. The following is an example of an unacceptable opinion for a Debian applicant: 5a. The GNU Free Documentaion License (FDL) has been heavily discussed on debian-legal recently. Read http://people.debian.org/~srivasta/Position_Statement.html and briefly explain how you feel about the including documents licensed under the FDL in main and what consequences of this position might be for Debian. Debian should ignore licenses and include everything in main. That's a poor answer because the applicant clearly doesn't understand the issues involved. Debian of course cannot legally do that. That said, I fully agree with that opinion. Dealing with licenses is cumbersome, time consuming, and largely a waste of time. If it were up to me, there would be no licenses and copyrights. Everything would just be free. Does that mean I don't belong in Debian, simply because I have little desire to scrutinize licenses? -- You win again, gravity!
Re: NEW ocaml licence proposal by upstream, will be part of the 3.08.1 release going into sarge.
Richard Braakman [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: On Sat, Aug 21, 2004 at 01:29:51PM -0400, Brian Thomas Sniffen wrote: Richard Braakman [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: On Thu, Aug 19, 2004 at 02:09:52PM -0400, Brian Thomas Sniffen wrote: * I can't fork the code, even distributing as patches. There's no way for me to make XEmacs, which is FSF Emacs + code by people who won't transfer copyright to the FSF. This part I find particularly interesting, because I see the freedom to fork as fundamental. I don't understand your reasoning, though. Can you explain what would go wrong if I tried to create an XOcaml? INRIA downloads it and incorporates the neat features into the proprietary version, which they sell to others. How does that stop you from forking the code? Are we using different meanings of fork, perhaps? If I fork a project, I don't mind if the original maintainers then give up their branch and use mine. In fact, it validates my decision. So you make your fork. INRIA downloads it, sells it to Bob. Bob makes some changes of his own, and sells it back to you. You own a copyright on some of the stuff Bob is selling you -- if he's following the law, then you *already* have the right to modify that. But you can't take those features and step into INRIA's role. -- Brian Sniffen [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Measuring divergence, was: Suggestions of David Nusinow
On 2004-08-24 16:22:49 +0100 Matthew Garrett [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: MJ Ray [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I see how you could measure this appearance: [...] Can you post the methodology and results you used, please? It will be very useful for some other situations. It's an impression. Hence seems rather than is. Oh, I thought you were making a claim about the appearance. Would you mind writing seems to me or something else that makes it clearer that you are just giving your impression rather than stating a finding, please? It's a shame: it really would be useful to have a good inexpensive way to measure this sort of public face. :-( -- MJR/slefMy Opinion Only and not of any group I know http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ for creative copyleft computing
Re: Suggestions of David Nusinow, was: RPSL and DFSG-compliance - choice of venue
On 2004-08-24 17:55:43 +0100 Brian Nelson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Tue, Aug 24, 2004 at 10:09:02AM +0100, MJ Ray wrote: Really? *all*? So, what is the value of having these questions in the NM process? As I said, to ensure the applicants understand the issues involved. If *all* answers are accepted, even ones like Andrew Suffield's example, I don't see how it does that. I thought the NM process should make sure people were generally competent, not just technically? Do we need to review the process as well as the licensing questions? :-/ -- MJR/slefMy Opinion Only and not of any group I know http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ for creative copyleft computing
Re: Suggestions of David Nusinow, was: RPSL and DFSG-compliance - choice of venue
On Tue, Aug 24, 2004 at 06:18:56PM +0100, Andrew Suffield wrote: On Tue, Aug 24, 2004 at 10:06:39AM -0700, Brian Nelson wrote: On Tue, Aug 24, 2004 at 01:41:07PM +0100, Andrew Suffield wrote: The following is an example of an unacceptable opinion for a Debian applicant: 5a. The GNU Free Documentaion License (FDL) has been heavily discussed on debian-legal recently. Read http://people.debian.org/~srivasta/Position_Statement.html and briefly explain how you feel about the including documents licensed under the FDL in main and what consequences of this position might be for Debian. Debian should ignore licenses and include everything in main. That's a poor answer because the applicant clearly doesn't understand the issues involved. Debian of course cannot legally do that. That said, I fully agree with that opinion. Dealing with licenses is cumbersome, time consuming, and largely a waste of time. If it were up to me, there would be no licenses and copyrights. Everything would just be free. Does that mean I don't belong in Debian, simply because I have little desire to scrutinize licenses? There's a difference between a vague preference, and an opinion that we should actually do it. Note that this one also implies the DFSG should be scrapped. OK, but the applicant also has to agree to abide by the SC as part of the NM process. As long as the applicant agrees to the SC and understands the (difficult) process to change the SC or DFSG, I don't see why we should discriminate against any particular opinion. -- You win again, gravity!
Re: Suggestions of David Nusinow, was: RPSL and DFSG-compliance - choice of venue
Andrew Suffield writes: On Tue, Aug 24, 2004 at 03:01:37PM +0100, Steve McIntyre wrote: And it's not what he's claiming at all, as you well know. debian-legal currently includes a large number of people who are on the more extreme end of the range of licensing opinions expressed within Debian. Irrelevant. debian-legal represents only the group who are interested in licensing issues. Obviously that will include extreme ends, because anybody who is not interested by definition cannot be such a person - if they exist anywhere, they will do so here. That's a stunningly useless observation. Thanks. Written in your typical patronising fashion, of course. That's half the reason why a lot of people don't/won't take part in discussions here. But of course you'll find some clever retort to that point too, I'm sure. Membership (and, more importantly, participation) in a mailing list does not just depend on interest. It also depends on the amount of time and effort that people have available to devote to the discussions. Start filling their inboxes with fruitless discussions and only the most interested, most committed people with the most time to spend will remain. As Debian people already tend to have extreme views in terms of software licensing, that means we only end up with the most extreme of the extreme views represented here. People with strong opinions out at the other end of the arguments will generally not have got this far. So we end up with arguments between the middle and one extreme. That's where we are today. Classifying an entire group as being equivalent to the person in that group who you personally find most objectionable - well, that's just dumb. Not when the group is dominated by the objectionable people... But it's a great help in terms of understanding the meanings of lots of the *legal* license terms that are bandied about. And how they might be applied in court, with precedent. And in this case professional training is much more important than in the others you named IMHO. I see absolutely no justification for that opinion. It seems equally valid for all the other cases. In the other cases precedent and precise meaning are not so important. If we make a programming mistake, we have a bug. It can get fixed. If we make a mistake in terms of helping an AM, we can apologise and try again. In legal terms, we can get sued if we make mistakes. -- Steve McIntyre, Cambridge, UK.[EMAIL PROTECTED] There's no sensation to compare with this Suspended animation, A state of bliss
Re: NEW ocaml licence proposal by upstream, will be part of the 3.08.1 release going into sarge.
Glenn Maynard [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: On Sun, Aug 22, 2004 at 09:02:47PM +0200, Francesco Poli wrote: I felt that while the initial developer is bound to release the same version under the QPL also, he/she is allowed to give to others permission to modify the differently licensed version with no must be additionally available under the terms of the QPL restriction. He doesn't have that permission himself. How can he possibly give it to others? If he can't release just under the GPL, how can he allow me to? Because there are three works in question: the original work A, and your patch to it P(A). Then there's the version the initial developer releases, B=A+P(A). He releases that to his dog under the QPL, so it's available, and sells it to me under the GPL. I don't see the separate patch, I just see this as work B. I make some further changes to this and release to the world under the GPL as work C. The future version of the software containing the work *you* contributed is still available to the world under the QPL. -Brian -- Brian Sniffen [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Suggestions of David Nusinow, was: RPSL and DFSG-compliance - choice of venue
Brian Thomas Sniffen [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Matthew Garrett [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: You don't appear to be arguing against the idea that debian-legal is extreme compared to the rest of the project. I'm arguing that what you perceive as extremism is simply the presence of knowledge -- sure, the debian-legal regulars have opinions about licenses. The X Strike Force probably has opinions about windowing systems and weird architectures. That doesn't make XSF or D-L extremists, though. To characterize anyone with knowledge and the reasoned opinions that spring from it as an extremist is unwise; to dismiss them because of this extremism is to restrict yourself to the opinions of the unwise. So you believe that if we taught all developers about intricate licensing issues, the number who would be of the opinion that DFSG 4 is a mistake and that the GPL is only free because of DFSG 10 would increase significantly? I don't wish to characterise people with knowledge and reasoned opinions as extremists. I do wish to characterise people who believe that several things that Debian accepts as free should be non-free as extremists. If there is overlap between the two, that doesn't mean that I'm calling them extremists because of their knowledge. -- Matthew Garrett | [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Suggestions of David Nusinow, was: RPSL and DFSG-compliance - choice of venue
On Tue, Aug 24, 2004 at 06:21:17PM +0100, Matthew Garrett wrote: Brian Thomas Sniffen [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Matthew Garrett [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: You don't appear to be arguing against the idea that debian-legal is extreme compared to the rest of the project. I'm arguing that what you perceive as extremism is simply the presence of knowledge -- sure, the debian-legal regulars have opinions about licenses. The X Strike Force probably has opinions about windowing systems and weird architectures. That doesn't make XSF or D-L extremists, though. To characterize anyone with knowledge and the reasoned opinions that spring from it as an extremist is unwise; to dismiss them because of this extremism is to restrict yourself to the opinions of the unwise. So you believe that if we taught all developers about intricate licensing issues, the number who would be of the opinion that DFSG 4 is a mistake and that the GPL is only free because of DFSG 10 would increase significantly? I don't believe this are particularly common viewpoints within -legal, so... -- .''`. ** Debian GNU/Linux ** | Andrew Suffield : :' : http://www.debian.org/ | `. `' | `- -- | signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Suggestions of David Nusinow, was: RPSL and DFSG-compliance - choice of venue
Matthew Garrett [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Brian Thomas Sniffen [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Matthew Garrett [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: You don't appear to be arguing against the idea that debian-legal is extreme compared to the rest of the project. I'm arguing that what you perceive as extremism is simply the presence of knowledge -- sure, the debian-legal regulars have opinions about licenses. The X Strike Force probably has opinions about windowing systems and weird architectures. That doesn't make XSF or D-L extremists, though. To characterize anyone with knowledge and the reasoned opinions that spring from it as an extremist is unwise; to dismiss them because of this extremism is to restrict yourself to the opinions of the unwise. So you believe that if we taught all developers about intricate licensing issues, the number who would be of the opinion that DFSG 4 is a mistake and that the GPL is only free because of DFSG 10 would increase significantly? Probably, though I think that, taken proportionally, you'd see a much larger increase in the former than the latter. That may be because I think that DFSG 4 doesn't allow surprising modifications, which are fundamental to freedom. I don't wish to characterise people with knowledge and reasoned opinions as extremists. I do wish to characterise people who believe that several things that Debian accepts as free should be non-free as extremists. If there is overlap between the two, that doesn't mean that I'm calling them extremists because of their knowledge. Debian accepts several pieces of QPL'd software as free. I don't think the QPL is a free software license. Does that fact alone make me an extremist? Is anyone with a position on the GFDL an extremist, then, or just the losers? That really could have gone either way. -Brian -- Brian Sniffen [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Suggestions of David Nusinow, was: RPSL and DFSG-compliance - choice of venue
On Tue, Aug 24, 2004 at 11:08:17AM -0700, Brian Nelson wrote: On Tue, Aug 24, 2004 at 06:44:25PM +0100, MJ Ray wrote: On 2004-08-24 17:55:43 +0100 Brian Nelson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Tue, Aug 24, 2004 at 10:09:02AM +0100, MJ Ray wrote: Really? *all*? So, what is the value of having these questions in the NM process? As I said, to ensure the applicants understand the issues involved. If *all* answers are accepted, even ones like Andrew Suffield's example, I don't see how it does that. That's what followup questions are for. Followup questions are pretty much always necessary for 5a and 6, since most applicants won't give detailed answers without prodding. Since we're talking in hypotheticals here, feel free to assume that after much prodding all you got was a wordier form of the same thing. It's not particularly unlikely; there is no position so stupid that you cannot find a person who holds it. Other than that, it's up to the AM to judge social competence or whatever, based on the applicant's participation on the mailing lists, etc. Debian does not place much importance on social competence in general (not just in NM) though, as you've probably noticed... Don't confuse competence with conformance. One is a measure of whether you agree with somebody; the other is a measure of whether you can work with them *despite* not agreeing with them. AMs tend to be lousy at this though, so it's one of those things which falls to the DAM (compare the number of applicants rejected by their AM for being a fuckwit to the number rejected by the DAM for being a fuckwit). -- .''`. ** Debian GNU/Linux ** | Andrew Suffield : :' : http://www.debian.org/ | `. `' | `- -- | signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Suggestions of David Nusinow, was: RPSL and DFSG-compliance - choice of venue
On Tue, Aug 24, 2004 at 05:56:54PM +0100, Steve McIntyre wrote: Andrew Suffield writes: On Tue, Aug 24, 2004 at 03:01:37PM +0100, Steve McIntyre wrote: And it's not what he's claiming at all, as you well know. debian-legal currently includes a large number of people who are on the more extreme end of the range of licensing opinions expressed within Debian. Irrelevant. debian-legal represents only the group who are interested in licensing issues. Obviously that will include extreme ends, because anybody who is not interested by definition cannot be such a person - if they exist anywhere, they will do so here. That's a stunningly useless observation. Thanks. Written in your typical patronising fashion, of course. That's half the reason why a lot of people don't/won't take part in discussions here. Unsubstiantiated assertion. Also unlikely, and a cheap attempt at dismissing a point without answering it, and an inexplicable use of patronising; I suggest you consult a dictionary. I'm not sure what you think it means, but it makes no sense here. [Out of order to save repeating myself] Classifying an entire group as being equivalent to the person in that group who you personally find most objectionable - well, that's just dumb. Not when the group is dominated by the objectionable people... And again. Membership (and, more importantly, participation) in a mailing list does not just depend on interest. It also depends on the amount of time and effort that people have available to devote to the discussions. Start filling their inboxes with fruitless discussions and only the most interested, most committed people with the most time to spend will remain. As Debian people already tend to have extreme views in terms of software licensing, that means we only end up with the most extreme of the extreme views represented here. People with strong opinions out at the other end of the arguments will generally not have got this far. So we end up with arguments between the middle and one extreme. That's where we are today. I see no connection between this paragraph and the real world. Most of the people on -legal who participate in the important stuff are also critically short of time and tend to skip over useless threads. Most of the useless threads are the responsibility of outsiders who just won't listen, and who would rather argue a point than do anything about it (even when action is easier than arguing about it). So if we assume the rest of your argument holds true, the most you can say about that is that they're a (perhaps unintentional) effort to sabotage the work of -legal. Extreme views here is a meaningless term and an tasteless attempt at demagoguery. I've tolerated it this far, but enough is enough; please grow some manners. The validity of a viewpoint is not determined by how close it comes to some end of an arbitrary scale. I haven't seen any arguments between arbitrary middle and extreme points on the scale in a long time, either. So I don't know where you are today, but it's not here. But it's a great help in terms of understanding the meanings of lots of the *legal* license terms that are bandied about. And how they might be applied in court, with precedent. And in this case professional training is much more important than in the others you named IMHO. I see absolutely no justification for that opinion. It seems equally valid for all the other cases. In the other cases precedent and precise meaning are not so important. If we make a programming mistake, we have a bug. It can get fixed. If we make a mistake in terms of helping an AM, we can apologise and try again. In legal terms, we can get sued if we make mistakes. Why do you *think* we always tend towards the paranoid viewpoint? You seem to be arguing at cross-purposes with yourself now; the objection is that we classify too much as non-free or non-distributable, and yet you argue that our approach is invalid because we might accept something as free that we *shouldn't*? If you can hire us a lawyer (and thereby invoke the defense that if their advice is bad, it's their fault and not ours), it's possible that we can sail a little closer and accept some things we've previously rejected. Absent that, you have just given the reason why we *must* reject things that we are not certain about. If we didn't have -legal, we would have to reject every new license for fear of being sued. As it stands, we can accept some of them. Complaining that there exists a possibility that we reject some things we shouldn't is neither relevant nor useful. And that's not even on the map for the cases that people bitch and moan about the most - these are the cases where the license is clear but not DFSG-free. Lawyers cannot help there. So, correcting your statement in light of all this: In legal terms, if we make a mistake we can always include the package at a later date. Again, there appears to be no
Re: NEW ocaml licence proposal by upstream, will be part of the 3.08.1 release going into sarge.
On Tue, Aug 24, 2004 at 02:19:32PM -0400, Brian Thomas Sniffen wrote: Please cite relevant text from the GPL. Section 9. I don't see anything like that. All I see is a common license from authors that software is available under the GNU GPL, version 2 or any later version, at the discretion of the *recipient*. I suppose you could claim that a loophole exists here, if the FSF never receives a copy of your changes. But that doesn't have any impact on other cases. -- Raul
Re: Suggestions of David Nusinow, was: RPSL and DFSG-compliance - choice of venue
On Tue, Aug 24, 2004 at 03:43:01PM -0400, Brian Thomas Sniffen wrote: Matthew Garrett [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: So you believe that if we taught all developers about intricate licensing issues, the number who would be of the opinion that DFSG 4 is a mistake and that the GPL is only free because of DFSG 10 would increase significantly? Probably, though I think that, taken proportionally, you'd see a much larger increase in the former than the latter. That may be because I think that DFSG 4 doesn't allow surprising modifications, which are fundamental to freedom. �surprising modifications? I don't wish to characterise people with knowledge and reasoned opinions as extremists. I do wish to characterise people who believe that several things that Debian accepts as free should be non-free as extremists. If there is overlap between the two, that doesn't mean that I'm calling them extremists because of their knowledge. Debian accepts several pieces of QPL'd software as free. I don't think the QPL is a free software license. Does that fact alone make me an extremist? There remains some amount of debate about whether the QPL is a free software license. I don't think disagreement over individual licenses is in itself a sign of extremism - I think the QPL is probably free, but close to the line. Is anyone with a position on the GFDL an extremist, then, or just the losers? That really could have gone either way. If it could have gone either way, that suggests that the losers aren't extremists. I think people who disagree with the DFSG (in either direction) are probably extremists - there's enough room for different interpretations and beliefs without actually having to disagree that active disagreement suggests that your opinions are fairly extreme. -- Matthew Garrett | [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: NEW ocaml licence proposal by upstream, will be part of the 3.08.1 release going into sarge.
On Tue, Aug 24, 2004 at 02:39:47PM -0400, Brian Thomas Sniffen wrote: Because there are three works in question: the original work A, and your patch to it P(A). Then there's the version the initial developer releases, B=A+P(A). He releases that to his dog under the QPL, so it's available, and sells it to me under the GPL. I don't see the separate patch, I just see this as work B. I make some further changes to this and release to the world under the GPL as work C. The future version of the software containing the work *you* contributed is still available to the world under the QPL. You labelled versions but didn't use those labels in the final sentence, so I'm not sure which one you meant (both B and C fit). Work B? How? He only released it to his dog, not to the world, and you'd have a hard time asking the dog to send it even if you knew he had it. If you're claiming that you can get around the requirement to keep it available under the QPL by releasing once to an uninterested party (such as a dog), you're talking about loopholes. Work C? It isn't available to the world under the QPL, only the GPL, and it, too, is a future version of the software, with my patch in it. (Well, Software isn't defined, so it isn't clear if it's the same Software after being modified a few more times and going through a few more hands; but it sure feels like it is.) (The portion of C which is B--the part owned by me or the initial developer-- is still available under the QPL, if it could be extracted from C; but C as a whole still seems to be a future version of B, and it's not available under the QPL.) -- Glenn Maynard
Re: NEW ocaml licence proposal by upstream, will be part of the 3.08.1 release going into sarge.
On Tue, Aug 24, 2004 at 02:19:32PM -0400, Brian Thomas Sniffen wrote: Please cite relevant text from the GPL. Raul Miller [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Section 9. On Tue, Aug 24, 2004 at 04:40:25PM -0400, Brian Thomas Sniffen wrote: I don't see anything in there about the FSF replacing my license to Emacs 21 with something else. The part which binds me, instead of the FSF, is this: Each version is given a distinguishing version number. If the Program specifies a version number of this License which applies to it and any later version, you have the option of following the terms and conditions either of that version or of any later version published by the Free Software Foundation. If the Program does not specify a version number of this License, you may choose any version ever published by the Free Software Foundation. So I have Emacs under version 2 or any later version. I don't want any later version right now, so I'll take it under GPL v2 for the forseeable future. Where's the bit where the FSF can replace my license? What's your role here? Are you the copyright holder, a developer of some change or some downstream user? Let's imagine that you're not the copyright holder, but that instead you're the developer who submits some change. Let's also imagine that the change goes into some debian package which is distributed as a part of main. For added fun, let's imagine that the package in question is gcc, and let's imagine that someone at the FSF has downloaded the software in question from a debian mirror. [I hope none of these assumptions seem particularly outrageous.] Now, it's true that there is no version 3 of the gpl right now. So here's where we get into completely hypothetical land: The FSF could release a GPL version 3 which has completely arbitrary terms. If control of the FSF had passed to someone unscrupulous, these terms might be proprietary. [I'm not saying this is a likely scenario, just a possible one -- I hope this hypothesis seems particularly outrageous.] Anyways, that's something only the FSF can do with gcc licensing -- no one else can. More simply, I'm asserting that the QPL relicense clause is similar in spirit (though not in implementation) to section 9 of the GPL. -- Raul
Re: CeCILL again...
On Tue, Aug 24, 2004 at 11:19:27AM +0100, Edmund GRIMLEY EVANS wrote: The license is binding on the licensee, Not in the same way, assuming it really is a licence, rather than a contract. Maybe; if I modify software and distribute the result, and I misunderstand the license, I can still be up an unpleasant creek (though not as bad as if I violated the license intentionally). who should not have to be bound by a text in a language that they don't understand properly. (The only solution available to me, in that situation, is to not touch the software.) Then you have a solution. Use it. But please don't try to force your solution on other people who may be perfectly happy, or even happier, with a licence in French. I don't think just don't use the software is an acceptable solution. -- Glenn Maynard
Re: Suggestions of David Nusinow, was: RPSL and DFSG-compliance - choice of venue
On 2004-08-24 17:56:54 +0100 Steve McIntyre [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Andrew Suffield writes: [stuff] Thanks. Written in your typical patronising fashion, of course. That's half the reason why a lot of people don't/won't take part in discussions here. [...] I think I've disagreed with Andrew Suffield as much as most. His writing is terse and I think he sometimes includes insulting adjectives, but patronising is not a word I'd use to describe it. I don't mind terse: if more posters trimmed efficiently and wrote shorter messages, this list would be more usable. Could do with losing the more obvious flamebait IMO, but he still posts some useful info among the grumbles, doesn't seem to do much character assassination and he doesn't constantly curse everyone up, unlike some debian list inhabitants. As for list domination, Andrew doesn't seem to be that common here recently. Actually, I'm not sure whether you were complaining about Andrew there, so it was not a very helpful comment. :-/ -- MJR/slefMy Opinion Only and not of any group I know http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ for creative copyleft computing Please email about: BT alternative for line rental+DSL; Education on SMEs+EU FP6; office filing that works fast
Bits from debian-legal between 2004-08-16 and 2004-08-22
Index for this date range starts at http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2004/08/maillist.html#00359 The 7 most active threads: NEW ocaml licence proposal by upstream, will be part of the 3.08.1 release going into sarge, over 100 posts this week to 22 Aug, http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2004/08/maillist.html#00387 Choice-of-Venue is OK with the DFSG, over 20 posts from 16 to 22 Aug, http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2004/08/maillist.html#00364 Web application licenses, over 15 posts this week to 17 Aug, http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2004/08/maillist.html#00365 Bug#265352: grub: Debian splash images for Grub, over 20 posts this week to 20 Aug, http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2004/08/maillist.html#00362 GPL-licensed packages with depend-chain to OpenSSL, over 10 posts this week to 20 Aug, http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2004/08/maillist.html#00437 A short licence check, over 10 posts from 21 to 22 Aug, http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2004/08/mail2.html#00570 CeCILL again..., over 5 posts from 22 Aug, http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2004/08/mail2.html#00590 Bits author picks: Debian project leader Martin Michlmayr asks about making a debian logo DFSG-free: http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2004/08/msg00465.html The tail of the Netatalk/OpenSSL thread lives on: http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2004/08/msg00360.html Glenn Maynard on the trouble with new copyleft licences for documentation: http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2004/08/msg00580.html Please send comments/corrections/offers of help to me and cc [EMAIL PROTECTED] - this is week 3 of the beta. -- MJR/slefMy Opinion Only and not of any group I know http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ for creative copyleft computing RFC3156 defines security multipart formats for MIME with OpenPGP. pgpFBa5hEc0bt.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Bits from debian-legal between 2004-08-16 and 2004-08-22
On Tue, Aug 24, 2004 at 10:48:13PM +0100, MJ Ray wrote: Choice-of-Venue is OK with the DFSG, over 20 posts from 16 to 22 Aug, http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2004/08/maillist.html#00364 Sometimes the subject line is a really awful summary of a thread. -- .''`. ** Debian GNU/Linux ** | Andrew Suffield : :' : http://www.debian.org/ | `. `' | `- -- | signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Bits from debian-legal between 2004-08-16 and 2004-08-22
On 2004-08-24 22:46:58 +0100 Andrew Suffield [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Sometimes the subject line is a really awful summary of a thread. Not my fault. It was broken when I got here, honest! ;-) Actually, I think there were a couple of really awful subject lines last week. It would really help if posters updated the subject occasionally and prefixed the old one with was. This may help for other things too. For the bits list, I'd really prefer not to get into editing, as that way lies a lot of work and the tabloids. When a particular thread goes bananas, I do stop reading things with its subject if I'm busy. Updating the subject will get my attention again if it's something interesting. I don't think that's unusual. -- MJR/slefMy Opinion Only and not of any group I know http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ for creative copyleft computing
Re: Suggestions of David Nusinow, was: RPSL and DFSG-compliance - choice of venue
Andrew Suffield writes: On Tue, Aug 24, 2004 at 05:56:54PM +0100, Steve McIntyre wrote: Thanks. Written in your typical patronising fashion, of course. That's half the reason why a lot of people don't/won't take part in discussions here. Unsubstiantiated assertion. Also unlikely, and a cheap attempt at dismissing a point without answering it, and an inexplicable use of patronising; I suggest you consult a dictionary. I'm not sure what you think it means, but it makes no sense here. 2 for 2. Well done, Andrew. You didn't let me down at all. I see no connection between this paragraph and the real world. Most of the people on -legal who participate in the important stuff are also critically short of time and tend to skip over useless threads. Most of the useless threads are the responsibility of outsiders who just won't listen, and who would rather argue a point than do anything about it (even when action is easier than arguing about it). So if we assume the rest of your argument holds true, the most you can say about that is that they're a (perhaps unintentional) effort to sabotage the work of -legal. Simple question: what do you think _is_ the work of -legal? Extreme views here is a meaningless term and an tasteless attempt at demagoguery. I've tolerated it this far, but enough is enough; please grow some manners. The validity of a viewpoint is not determined by how close it comes to some end of an arbitrary scale. Manners? From you? Ha! Why do you *think* we always tend towards the paranoid viewpoint? You seem to be arguing at cross-purposes with yourself now; the objection is that we classify too much as non-free or non-distributable, and yet you argue that our approach is invalid because we might accept something as free that we *shouldn't*? So, at what point does it end? I've seen people seriously (I assume) suggesting here in the last few weeks that they variously don't consider the GPL, the BSD or MIT licenses free. If we're going to be that paranoid, why bother playing this game any more? If you take that attitude, we've lost already. -- Steve McIntyre, Cambridge, UK.[EMAIL PROTECTED] We don't need no education. We don't need no thought control.
Re: NEW ocaml licence proposal by upstream, will be part of the 3.08.1 release going into sarge.
Glenn Maynard [EMAIL PROTECTED] schrieb/wrote: No, I don't think they can do that. The permission grant in QPL#3b says provided such versions remain available under these terms in addition to any other license(s) of the initial developer, which only seems to allow them to release it under other terms *in addition to* the QPL. This does not mean they can't use the code in products not licensed under the QPL. With clause #3b, contributors have to give them permission to do so. The clause only means they can't take submitted code for proprietary works and never release it in an QPL-licensed work. As long as the submitted code is made available under the QPL, they can also make it available under any other license. Note that clause #3b does (IMO intentionally) not require modifications of the contributed code to be available under the QPL, so they can also license it under different open source licenses, including the GPL. Claus -- http://www.faerber.muc.de
Re: Suggestions of David Nusinow, was: RPSL and DFSG-compliance - choice of venue
On Tue, Aug 24, 2004 at 11:34:43PM +0100, Steve McIntyre wrote: I see no connection between this paragraph and the real world. Most of the people on -legal who participate in the important stuff are also critically short of time and tend to skip over useless threads. Most of the useless threads are the responsibility of outsiders who just won't listen, and who would rather argue a point than do anything about it (even when action is easier than arguing about it). So if we assume the rest of your argument holds true, the most you can say about that is that they're a (perhaps unintentional) effort to sabotage the work of -legal. Simple question: what do you think _is_ the work of -legal? License analysis. Extreme views here is a meaningless term and an tasteless attempt at demagoguery. I've tolerated it this far, but enough is enough; please grow some manners. The validity of a viewpoint is not determined by how close it comes to some end of an arbitrary scale. Manners? From you? Ha! No, from you. I have never knowingly violated my concept of good manners. You just did it twice. Why do you *think* we always tend towards the paranoid viewpoint? You seem to be arguing at cross-purposes with yourself now; the objection is that we classify too much as non-free or non-distributable, and yet you argue that our approach is invalid because we might accept something as free that we *shouldn't*? So, at what point does it end? I've seen people seriously (I assume) suggesting here in the last few weeks that they variously don't consider the GPL, the BSD or MIT licenses free. If we're going to be that paranoid, why bother playing this game any more? If you take that attitude, we've lost already. Are you just trying to troll? That's so out of the field that I don't know where to start... -- .''`. ** Debian GNU/Linux ** | Andrew Suffield : :' : http://www.debian.org/ | `. `' | `- -- | signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Suggestions of David Nusinow, was: RPSL and DFSG-compliance - choice of venue
On Tue, Aug 24, 2004 at 11:34:43PM +0100, Steve McIntyre wrote: Extreme views here is a meaningless term and an tasteless attempt at demagoguery. I've tolerated it this far, but enough is enough; please grow some manners. The validity of a viewpoint is not determined by how close it comes to some end of an arbitrary scale. Manners? From you? Ha! Well, you sure told him! So, at what point does it end? I've seen people seriously (I assume) suggesting here in the last few weeks that they variously don't consider the GPL, the BSD or MIT licenses free. If we're going to be that paranoid, why bother playing this game any more? If you take that attitude, we've lost already. Who is saying each of these? I've said that I dislike some effects of the GPL, but not that it's non-free. Walter Landry has said that he believes the GPL would fail the DFSG if DFSG#10 wasn't there, but it is, and he hasn't suggested (as far as I know) that he actually considers the GPL non-free. These are the only things I can remember that you might be referring to. I can't remember anyone ever saying that the MIT license is non-free, except for a brief discussion about the MIT's associated documentation wording, which we quickly agreed about and moved on. (That's a useful case, in fact: a very short, very clearly free license, but with an interpretation that would be non-free--that associated documentation includes documentation that isn't distributed with or derived from the software. It, like the Pine case, shows how free licenses can have non-free instantiations.) Personally, I think the 4-clause BSD's advertising clause feels non-free (eg. the banner ad case), but it's not a strong feeling nor one I'm pushing. I can't think of any sense in which the 2- or 3-clause BSD licenses could be called non-free, or any case where somebody has seriously suggested it. I can't remember anyone ever suggesting that any of these licenses should start being ripped from Debian; if somebody seriously believed that they were non-free, that's what I'd expect. Discussions about established licenses, and understanding and acknowledgement of problems they may have, are very useful. -- Glenn Maynard
Re: NEW ocaml licence proposal by upstream, will be part of the 3.08.1 release going into sarge.
On Tue, Aug 24, 2004 at 03:38:00PM +0200, Claus Färber wrote: This does not mean they can't use the code in products not licensed under the QPL. With clause #3b, contributors have to give them permission to do so. The clause only means they can't take submitted code for proprietary works and never release it in an QPL-licensed work. As long as the submitted code is made available under the QPL, they can also make it available under any other license. Note that clause #3b does (IMO intentionally) not require modifications of the contributed code to be available under the QPL, so they can also license it under different open source licenses, including the GPL. I believe the above is not in agreement with the license: ... is granted to the initial developer of the Software to distribute your modification in future versions of the Software provided such versions remain available under these terms in addition to any other license(s) of the initial developer. I don't see any implication that the intent of the above is to allow the initial developer, or anyone else, to use the modification in other works which are not available under the QPL. The above says to me, as a (theoretical) contributor, the stuff your patch can be used in will always be available under the QPL. I'm not inclined to push and shove at this, if both the initial author and contributors are believed to agree on the interpretation you give (just because there are better uses of my time), but I do believe it doesn't folllow from the text. -- Glenn Mayard
Re: NEW ocaml licence proposal by upstream, will be part of the 3.08.1 release going into sarge.
Raul Miller [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: On Tue, Aug 24, 2004 at 02:19:32PM -0400, Brian Thomas Sniffen wrote: Please cite relevant text from the GPL. Section 9. I don't see anything in there about the FSF replacing my license to Emacs 21 with something else. The part which binds me, instead of the FSF, is this: Each version is given a distinguishing version number. If the Program specifies a version number of this License which applies to it and any later version, you have the option of following the terms and conditions either of that version or of any later version published by the Free Software Foundation. If the Program does not specify a version number of this License, you may choose any version ever published by the Free Software Foundation. So I have Emacs under version 2 or any later version. I don't want any later version right now, so I'll take it under GPL v2 for the forseeable future. Where's the bit where the FSF can replace my license? I don't see anything like that. All I see is a common license from authors that software is available under the GNU GPL, version 2 or any later version, at the discretion of the *recipient*. I suppose you could claim that a loophole exists here, if the FSF never receives a copy of your changes. But that doesn't have any impact on other cases. Loophole? What does this have to do with a loophole? Let's say I've got some big modifications to Emacs 21.3 here. I send them to the FSF, saying that they are licensed to them under GPL v2. The FSF promptly tosses them in the trash, since they only take stuff with copyright assignment. OK, let's say they *really* want these mods, for whatever reason. So they publish a GPL v3 and... absolutely nothing. I don't see the replacement that you're talking about. -Brian -- Brian Sniffen [EMAIL PROTECTED]
